windows rt

Microsoft made $853m in revenue from Surface tablets in its 2013 fiscal year, a disappointing figure that failed to even cover the company's $900m inventory adjustment charge for the poorly selling Surface RT. The figures, confirmed in Microsoft's most recent 10K filing, paint an underwhelming picture of the Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets, though doesn't specify exactly how many units have been sold.

Lenovo has apparently discontinued its only Windows RT notebook, the IdeaPad Yoga 11 convertible, quietly ceasing sales through its own online store. The Yoga 11, which ran the pared-back Windows RT on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 chipset, has seemingly been superseded by the newer Yoga 11S, which swaps out the ARM chipset and replaces it with an Intel Core i3 processor and a full copy of Windows 8.

After yesterday's discount of the Surface RT becoming official in the US, Microsoft is expanding the price cut globally to various other countries, including the UK and Australia. Microsoft has updated its UK and Australian stores with updated prices for the older Windows tablet to reflect the lower price tag.

It's appeared again - the fabled Nokia Lumia tablet, complete with a set of specifications that are set to put suggestions of a final run to rest. What we've got here is a very unconfirmed sort of situation, but a friendly vision to behold, nonetheless. With Nokia's name at its back, this 10.1-inch tablet exists somewhere in the land of lost prototypes - complete with NVIDIA inside.

Dell isn't new to struggles, and it seems the company is continuing its streak of poor sales. Dell's only two Windows-based tablets, the XPS-10 and Latitude 10, have only combined for "hundreds of thousands" of units sold, according to Sam Burd, who is the company's vice president of personal computing.

Microsoft is set to reveal new versions of the Surface RT tablet, using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors alongside existing NVIDIA Tegra chips, sources claim, with the goal of adding integrated LTE support. Although NVIDIA will supply processors "for some versions" insiders told Bloomberg, Qualcomm's Snapdragon would feature in other models, as Microsoft attempts to make its homegrown slate more directly competitive with the iPad.

While Microsoft continues to push two different sects with their Windows 8 / Windows RT split, users deciding on the latter have made a case for needing one app particularly: Outlook. The 2013 version of Outlook has been confirmed earlier this week to be coming to Windows RT soon, but until then, the waiting will include early previews and sneak-shots galore. While surprises may be in store for users once the app is made real for the public, at the moment it seems that there's a severe lack of excitement going on for those users pre-testing the software - save a full Office suite, that is.

Qualcomm is well on its way to getting the Snapdragon 800 processors out there, but in the meanwhile, it has announced support for Windows RT 8.1. Both Microsoft and Qualcomm are working together in the matter, and some time later this year it is expected devices, such as tablets, are going to be rolled out running Windows RT 8.1 and Snapdragon 800 processors.

Microsoft is believed to be discounting Windows RT tablet OS licenses in an attempt to stimulate interest in the Windows-on-ARM platform. Windows RT had been Microsoft's strategy to directly take on the iPad and Android tablets with more affordable chipsets from Qualcomm and others, but lackluster app compatibility left OEMs hesitant. Now, Bloomberg's sources claim, Microsoft is relying on good old fashioned discounting to drive interest.

Acer has joined the Windows RT naysayers, with the company's chairman, J.T. Wang, criticizing the Windows-on-ARM platform for lacking influence in the market. The Taiwanese company hasn't been slow to jump on board the Windows 8 bandwagon - being the first company to launch an 8-inch Windows 8 tablet, in fact, earlier today at Computex - but Wang told the WSJ that his confidence didn't extend to the sibling OS.

HTC has reportedly axed plans to launch a 12-inch tablet running Windows RT, sources claim, after deciding demand for the slate would be insufficient, though a smaller version is still said to be on the roadmap. The unnamed 12-inch tablet was sidelined over fears that it would be too expensive, Bloomberg reports, with the components required adding up to too great a bill-of-materials to allow a competitive street price.

LG is mulling a return to the tablet market, Korean sources claim, with a new model tipped for release sometime in the second half of 2013, and potentially as early as Q3. Details of the speculated slate are in short supply, and according to Munhwa it's uncertain whether LG will opt for Windows or Android to power its renewed attempt on the big-screen mobility ecosystem.